U.S. House Approves Bill That Would Accelerate Lower Bois d'Arc Creek Reservoir Construction

Haystacks dot the landscape in rural Fannin County, TX, on Sept. 7, 2016. Hundreds of acres of farmland will be flooded within the next few years if a state-approved plan to create a reservoir goes forward.

George Hale

The U.S. House of Representatives has moved the creation of a delayed Fannin County reservoir one step closer construction.

An amendment to the Water Resources Development Act of 2016 would allow a group of North Texas municipalities to move forward on the project.

The proposed Lower Bois d’Arc Creek Reservoir is a year behind schedule as the Environmental Protection Agency reviews its impact.

Rep. Sam Johnson, who introduced the amendment, said the proposed lake in eastern Fannin County was needed to meet population growth in Collin County and other parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

“This goes beyond water rationing for lawns. This is about water as part of our normal, daily routine,” he said in a late September statement.

The amendment was sponsored by representatives Johnson, Eddie Bernice, Pete Sessions, and John Ratcliffe, representing districts in the Dallas area and Northeast Texas.

The bill would require that the Environmental Protection Agency issue a final permit for the reservoir no later than September 2017. That would be a year earlier than had been anticipated.

Tom Kula, executive director of the North Texas Municipal Water District, the agency building the lake, called its construction “essential.”

“We must start construction of the Lower Bois d’Arc Creek Reservoir as soon as possible to avoid the risk of water shortages,” Kula said.

The water district serves 1.6 million people to the north and east of Dallas, which together form one of the fastest-growing areas in the U.S.

Without the lake, the district expects a water deficit to hit those areas starting in 2021.

In early September, the Environmental Protection Agency said it was committed to the project and to improving the permitting process.

Opponents of the project object to the planned destruction of thousands of acres of privately owned farmland and millions of trees. So far, the district has purchased about 86 percent of the land required to build the reservoir.

Federal mitigation requirements would require the purchase and preservation of land elsewhere similar to the land that would be submerged by the lake in order to offset the environmental effects.

Fannin County’s commissioners court is expected to approve the first step in zoning the lake at a meeting on Oct. 18 in Bonham.

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Next month, Fannin County is set to approve a comprehensive plan for developing thousands of acres of expensive lakefront property. One problem: There’s no lake. But that’s not stopping it from pushing ahead anyway. Officials say the Lower Bois d’Arc Creek reservoir will be open for business by the time the government gets around to approving it. And that’s putting a spotlight on the high-stakes struggle for control of water resources throughout northeast Texas.

In Fannin County, construction of what would be the newest lake in Texas is a year behind schedule. Supporters of the Lower Bois d’Arc Creek Reservoir say that delay is bad news for the communities north of Dallas that would get water from the lake. But for some North Texas families, it's borrowed time to save their farms and livelihoods from the coming floods. KETR’s George Hale reports.

Bonham Mayor Roy Floyd says the start of the massive Lower Bois d'Arc Creek Reservoir project will be delayed by a couple of months, from January to March 2016. The estimated cost of the North Texas Utility Corp. project is now $1 billion. The Lake Ralph Hall project will apparently be delayed by a couple of years because of a difficult permitting process, the mayor says.

Bonham Mayor Roy Floyd says the North Texas Water Authority will begin construction of the Lower Bois D'Arc Creek Reservoir late this year or in early 2016. The lake will be 16 miles long and eight miles wide, from near Honey Grove to Lake Bonham. The lake has been in the development stage for about 30 years, the mayor says. Also, construction of Ralph Hall Lake near Ladonia is expected to begin in about a year, according to Mayor Floyd.